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Clear Reading and Paper trail

Read what you want from newsletters and notifications, keep the few that matter, and archive the rest in one sweep. Mail that is not from a person never reaches the desk. It goes to one of two places instead:

Place What is in it How it reads
Reading Newsletters and mailing lists. A feed, newest first, with every issue open. Nothing is bold and nothing counts as unread.
Paper trail Receipts, notifications, alerts and other automated mail. One line per sender: how many, the newest subject, how long ago. Open a line to see its messages.

Both places are views over the inbox. Archiving a message takes it out, and undo puts it back. Deliveries and calendar invites have their own pages, so they are in neither. Neither place carries a count in the sidebar; the desk’s Everything else line says how much arrived this week.

Open a place

Section titled “Open a place”

In the web app, pick Reading or Paper trail in the sidebar, or follow the link on the desk. In the TUI they are lenses in the sidebar. From the command line:

Terminal window
mxr paper-trail --messages 2
Paper trail · 3 messages from 3 senders


Uptime Robot                       1  2026-09-28
  here because: automated sending domain
    Interview panel for Staff Engineer candidate                      cc2cbc75-87a9-5c63-b941-aa63ec3607fb


Pager Relay                        1  2026-09-27
  here because: automated sending domain
    Launch checklist for Project Aurora                               732401d8-f0db-5459-ae9f-7e611d28226f


Build Watch                        1  2026-09-27
  here because: automated sending domain
    Pricing page copy review                                          e6de11f8-127a-58f6-8ce6-d828078395bd

mxr reading prints the same shape for Reading. --sender ADDRESS shows one sender’s bundle and --account NAME one account.

Check why a message is here

Section titled “Check why a message is here”

Every bundle and every issue says why it is there (“here because: has List-Unsubscribe”). The rules are fixed and local; no model decides. To ask about one message:

Terminal window
mxr why cc2cbc75-87a9-5c63-b941-aa63ec3607fb
uptime@alerts.demo.mxr.local: paper-trail (automated sending domain)

The full list of rules, in the order they apply, is in the placement rules reference.

Move a sender for good

Section titled “Move a sender for good”

When a sender is in the wrong place, move them. In the web app use Move sender to… in Reading or Paper trail, under a message in the reader, or in the command palette, and choose:

Kind Where their mail goes
People The desk, like anyone you write to.
Reading The feed.
Paper trail The bundles.
Screened out Nowhere. New mail from them is trashed and marked read as it arrives.
Automatic The rules decide again.

From the command line:

Terminal window
mxr sender kind uptime@alerts.demo.mxr.local reading
uptime@alerts.demo.mxr.local is now reading (was automatic).
Terminal window
mxr why cc2cbc75-87a9-5c63-b941-aa63ec3607fb
uptime@alerts.demo.mxr.local: reading (you moved this sender to Reading)

mxr sender kind ADDRESS auto hands the sender back to the rules.

The move applies to their inbox mail at once and to their mail from then on: move a newsletter to People and it leaves Reading and appears on the desk. Undo in the web app or TUI puts back the kind they had before. Kinds are stored as the sender’s screener decision, so the Screener’s Decisions tab lists them too.

Mail that releases before v0.6.38 archived on arrival for feed and paper-trail senders stays archived. Their new mail appears in the place.

Pin what you want to keep

Section titled “Pin what you want to keep”

A sweep leaves pinned messages where they are. Pin the few you want to keep in view before you sweep: use the pin at the end of a line in the web app, or from the command line:

Terminal window
mxr pin cc2cbc75-87a9-5c63-b941-aa63ec3607fb
Pinned 1 message.

Pins are local to this machine. They are not provider stars. mxr unpin MESSAGE_ID lets the next sweep take the message.

Sweep the rest

Section titled “Sweep the rest”

A sweep archives everything unpinned in one sender’s bundle, or in the whole place. Always preview first:

Terminal window
mxr sweep paper-trail --dry-run
Would archive 2 messages from Paper trail; 1 pinned message stays.
  Build Watch                        1
  Pager Relay                        1
    Launch checklist for Project Aurora
    Pricing page copy review

Then sweep:

Terminal window
mxr sweep paper-trail --yes
Archived 2 messages from Paper trail; 1 pinned message stays.
  Build Watch                        1
  Pager Relay                        1
    Launch checklist for Project Aurora
    Pricing page copy review
Undo with:
  mxr undo 01a0e733-cc1f-71c0-b554-c03d6170d24c

Add --sender ADDRESS to sweep one bundle. Without --yes or --dry-run, mxr sweep shows the preview and asks; outside a terminal it refuses.

In the web app, sweep a sender’s bundle or the whole place from its Sweep button or key. The preview comes from the daemon’s dry run of the same request: how many messages, from which senders, a few subjects, and how many pinned messages stay. When the sweep reaches past what is on screen, it says so (“Archives 143 messages, 20 shown here”). The TUI shows the same preview before it archives.

A sweep of one sender’s bundle confirms with Enter. A sweep of the whole place opens on Cancel, and its button says how much it takes (“Archive all 143 from 35 senders”): press Tab, then Enter. That way a slip between the two sweep keys archives nothing.

What a sweep archives:

  • Only the messages its preview listed. Mail that arrived after the preview is left for next time, and a message pinned or moved away in the meantime stays.
  • Nothing, if the preview has expired (after 10 minutes). Preview again.

Undo a sweep

Section titled “Undo a sweep”

Undo puts every swept message back. Use the toast’s Undo in the web app or TUI, or each id the sweep printed:

Terminal window
mxr undo 01a0e733-cc1f-71c0-b554-c03d6170d24c
Undone

A large sweep runs in chunks and prints one undo id per chunk; run mxr undo for each. The undo window is about a minute.

Keys

Section titled “Keys”

The keys for these places are the same in the web app and the TUI. They are in the keybindings reference, for the web app and the TUI. Once a conversation is open, the reader’s own keys apply. Before 0.6.41 the web app used other keys to open these places and to sweep; the reference’s 0.6.41 note lists them.

Next: when the desk is clear, the web app shows low tide. Back to your day in mxr.

MIT ORApache-2.0, at your option.